This paper analyses the business ties that Silicon Valley-based Indian technologists are building with the IT industry in their home country through a comparison with their Chinese counterparts, of both Taiwanese and mainland origin. In each of these cases the growth of cross-border technical communities is transforming the brain drain into 'brain circulation' , and providing a more flexible and responsive mechanism for promoting transfers of technology and skill than traditional foreign direct investment. However, while policy makers in Taiwan and mainland China have aggressively promoted and facilitated the institutionalisation of these transnational networks, the more hands-off approach of Indian policy makers appears to contribute to India's lower rates of return entrepreneurship.
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